Author Archives: Dorothy Max Prior

About Dorothy Max Prior

Dorothy Max Prior is the editor of Total Theatre Magazine, and is also a performer, writer, dramaturg and choreographer/director working in theatre, dance, installation and outdoor arts. Much of her work is sited in public spaces or in venues other than regular theatres. She also writes essays and stories, some of which are published and some of which languish in bottom drawers – and she teaches drama, dance and creative non-fiction writing. www.dorothymaxprior.com

Generik Vapeur/Gorilla Circus: Thank You for Having Us (Merci de Votre Accueil)

The main drag in Great Yarmouth on a Saturday night. There are gaggles of teenagers, dressed in a supermarket of styles: a bit of Mod here, a bit of Punk there. Lots of Adidas, too. There are families with tots in buggies, some clutching bags of crisps or lollipops, and there are kids sitting on their dad’s shoulders waving toy lightsavers, or weaving their way through the crowd on scooters. There are young couples, and older ones too, clutching chips or cans of drink.

Some are here for Thank You for Having Us, the grand procession and show that is the highlight of this weekend’s Out There International Festival of Circus and Street Arts. Some are here just because it’s Saturday night, and where else is there to be in Yarmouth of a Saturday night? There are games arcades a-plenty, with names like Golden Nuggets and Pink Flamingo. Each arcade boasts its own brilliantly bright illuminations – flashing letters and numbers, geometric lines and grids, and symbols and images. And a cacophony of sounds erupt from each: ‘Hey you! Yes, you! Come and play me, if you dare!’ screams an electronic voice from within. There are burger bars, and fish and chip shops, and pubs. Plenty of pubs, including one offering a doggy dinner for £2-50. Ah yes, dogs – people in Yarmouth like their dogs.

Into all this comes Generik Vapeur, grandmasters (and mistress) of the large-scale, seemingly anarchic – but in reality meticulously planned and executed – processional outdoor arts intervention. This Marseille based company are veterans of the French (and Pan-European) street theatre scene, and have been doing this sort of thing for upwards of 30 years. We are in safe hands.

Music is at the heart of it all: vocalist Caty Avram, co-founder of the company and co-author of the show (the others being director Pierre Berthelot of Genrik Vapeur and collaborator Ezra Trigg of Gorilla Circus) and the other musicians – electric guitars and bass, drumkit, percussion, keyboards/electronics/sampling – are placed on a series of adapted grand pianos on wheels. The sound is cosmic – hardcore and highly percussive progressive krautrock (think Can or Tangerine Dream), with a dash of expressive New York style punky jazz, and a hint of the Pierre Henry/Spooky Tooth collaboration – plus Caty’s expressive low voice and rich accent giving it a contemporary French Cabaret twist. Although musically very different to the traditional Samba of Brazil carnival, they share with the Rio bands their relentless energy, and refusal to take a break even to draw breathe. On and on it goes…

And rising above it all are two voices, one French, one English. Each statement, each polemical rant starts with ‘J’Accuse’, and the world is called out on its excessive consumption, its immoral large corporations, its gross inequalities, its neglect of the poorer members of its societies, its burning rainforest fires, its oceans filled with plastic rubbish.

The caravan of grand pianos, each sporting at least one or often two or three musicians, are joined together and pulled along by an engine at the front. Guardians of the pianos, and procession leaders, are a motley crew of performers (some company members or regular collaborators, some local volunteers). Dressed in a steampunk ragbag mix of military jackets, wonky hats, and overalls painted with musical notes or mathematical equations, they flock and disperse, drag and heave, run and pose.

As the convoy progresses from its starting point in a small park, it passes numerous fixed stations. The first is a house converted into an Amazon(ia) depot. An endless number of cardboard boxes are passed out from a top window into waiting hands on the ladders, and away into the crowd. An hour later, I see a small boy still clutching his empty, plain brown box. There’s a metaphor there somewhere. Next is a kind of metal arcade or bower sporting a growth of plastic items, bags, bubblewrap et al, representing the ‘vortex of waste’ of our modern world, in which an eighth continent made of plastic waste has composed itself.

I can also see that there is something happening under and around this bower construction, but I’m way back in the crowd, so can’t really see, and I’m feeling rather hemmed in. I use a trick learnt at carnival in Brazil, extract myself, find a way round the back, and emerge at the front, ahead of the procession – so I witness them moving towards me.

As the cavalcade turns onto the seafront, the magnificent noise the musicians are making collides with the cacophony coming from the arcades. Everything all around is light and sound. The ‘motley crew’ light up flares, and coloured smoke mingles with the technicoloured neon. Then, they bring down the barricades – literally, as the Heras fencing separating audience from performers is torn down, piled up and scattered. It’s an exhilarating and slightly worrying moment as the audience are now very close to those pianos. Next, a wooden cart appears, and a topless baby-faced young emperor throws all his new clothes out of his cart and into the night sky, swimsuits and sweaters raining down onto the audience in a great visual image of reckless, foolish consumption.

As the procession moves along the front, there are three station stops – this piece is a collaboration with the UK’s Gorilla Circus, and we are treated to top-notch displays by the company’s acrobats at each stop: an exhilarating ‘wheel of death’, a lovely and joyous cloud swing, and a breathtaking grand finale of flying trapeze. Although it must be said that great though these are, it is a little hard to understand how the circus work fits into the concept and themes of the show, and where the collaboration lies, as it feels a little like two companies placed side-by-side. But I wasn’t there for the devising process, can only judge on what is witnessed, so who knows?

Thank You For Having Us circles around a critique of consumption and a flagging up of environmental concerns. There is a slight unease considering this in the light of the amount of rigging, kit, and transporting of large pieces of equipment in enormous trucks that creating and presenting this show entails – it’s a show about consumerism and environmentalism, rather than an environmentally friendly show! It raises questions about being part of the problem versus being part of the solution – a vital question for anyone working in, programming, or consuming Outdoor Arts. Are medium and message two different things, to be considered separately? For how much longer can we sanction and support work of this sort?

On the other hand – it is fantastic. I love it. I am very glad I have seen it, heard it, been part of it. Just as I am glad to have taken long-haul flights to Brazil at carnival time, more than once. Perhaps the plug will get pulled on the party and it’ll all stop soon – but for now, the carnival goes on. Let’s dance till the end of time.

Featured image (top): Generik Vapeur/Gorilla Circus:Thank You for Having Us (Merci de Votre Accueil. Photo: Caroline Genis.

Out There International Festival of Circus & Street Arts, 14–15 September 2019: www.outtherefestival.com

Generik Vapeur / Gorilla Circus: Thank You for Having Us (Merci de Votre Accueil) is a Sea Change Arts co-production, and its appearance at Out There Festival its UK premiere.

Riverside Flights and Fancies: SIRF 2019

Stockton International Riverside Festival 2019 struck me as a festival in two parts. During the day and into early evening, the high street is a ringing, singing carnival of overlapping shows – static, circle, promenade. All very different propositions: from traditional street theatre, to tea dances, to acrobatics, to anarchic audience interactions… Edward Taylor paints a colourful picture for Total Theatre of some of the work that he encountered, here.

By night, the ‘riverside’ part of the festival comes into its own. On Friday evening, I see three very different movement-based shows on the riverside site.

Sisus Sirkus’ Mosh Split is a fabulous all-female circus show featuring five feisty Finnish women who do everything needed – aerial, acrobalance, rigging, counter-weighting, street dance, singing, and playing – in a girrrrrl power mash-up of top-notch circus skills, traditional Nordic music, and Euro-trash aesthetics all delivered with a high-energy Spice Girls sensibility. So good that I made sure I saw it twice, coming back on Saturday…

The show starts with each of the five characters appearing from their parked campervan (behind the 10-metre-high rig) and interacting with the audience. There’s the sexy one in black latex with her pet (plastic) chihuahua weaving through the crowd – prompting plenty of exciting interactions with real dogs and their owners. She’s fearless. Then there’s the wild-haired gal in leopardskin leaping merrily hither and thither. There’s the girlish one with the lovely smile, in her little booties and prettily patterned skirt; the funny one dressed in stripey leggings who goes round clownishly cleaning things; and the classy blonde in white lingerie with the (fake) fur jacket. ‘Pump up the Jam’ is the signal for them all to come together onstage for an energetic skipping routine, which leads into a ludicrously funny chewing gum skit, which all the little girls in the audience love. Let’s talk some more about those little girls: I don’t think I’ve ever seen such an enthusiastic response to a circus show from pre-teen girls, who follow their favourite character through the crowd in the pre-show, then clap and cheer ecstatically throughout the show, and when it’s all done burst out onto the surrounding grassy areas to cartwheel and handstand-walkover crazily. The next generation of circus perfromers is on the up!

Sisus Sirkus: Mosh Split. Photo courtesy of the company

But back to the show: there’s some great contortion cum partner acrobalance, ‘sexy’ and ‘wild’ clambering onto each other’s bridged bodies, making marvellous shapes. Less hand-to-hand than ass-to-face, in the girls’ own words. ‘Classy’ hops up onto a Washington trapeze, beautiful streamers flying out from her body as she rises. But – oh, it’s toilet roll! Not so classy! All through, the traditional circus mores of female grace and glamour and unattainable beauty and elegance are usurped and sent up. Yet always with unarguable skills behind the games. There’s a ‘bum ball’ contest (yes, the girls using each other as human mallets to bat beach balls into the audience), and a great aerial straps cum rollerblading act to a fabulously kitsch Euro-pop track. Hoovers are employed as hair dryers in a wonderfully anarchic grooming and preening number to the tune of ‘I Don’t Like my Hair Neat… These Shoes Stay on my Feet…’ Sometimes, the girls group themselves on top of the campervan to form an impromptu pop ensemble.

But then, at the very end, the tone changes. Gone is the trashy, rappy, pump-it-up soundtrack and the pop piss-takes. Instead, we have a gorgeous live soundscape created on a traditional Finnish instrument – a kind of dulcimer that I am told is called a Kantele. Whilst this angelic music sings out, two of the team are simultaneously soaring ever higher and higher on side-by-side swinging trapezes. Up and up, higher and even higher they go. Now they are so high, they are up with the birds, who are flying by over the water. It is gloriously beautiful and totally thrilling. Oh what joy you are, Sisus Sirkus!

Furinkai: Origami. Photo Stuart Boulton

As the sky darkens, our attention turns to a large red shipping container across the way. We sit on a grassy slope and wait to see what happens. There are creaking noises, with the obvious association of old, wooden trading ships.

A female dancer (Satchie Noro) appears, cautiously moving over the surface. Slowly, very slowly, sections of the big metal structure open up, taking her up with it, or leaving her stranded. There are ropes drawn out between the metal sections – loose ropes which are swung from energetically, and tight-ropes that are walked across skilfully.

The piece, by French company Furinkai, is called Origami – and this is an apt name, as the massive and seemingly solid pieces of metal turn themselves from triangle to rectangle to square, and more. It is a beautiful piece, in a gently mesmeric way. We sit and wonder at the evolving shapes, geometric beauty for beauty’s sake; we reflect on the contrast between soft human flesh and hard industrial steel; we muse on the meaning of the imagery, which inevitably suggests a contrast, if not conflict, between (wo)man and machine, and a commentary on industrialisation and globalisation – what could be a better symbol of late-stage capitalism than the ubiquitous shipping container?

Origami is a well choreographed and beautifully performed piece – not a ‘big wow’ show, but one that quietly delights the soul with its clear and vibrant images. The structure itself, and its use; the performer’s movement and costume – all is carefully thought through and visually beautiful, a great unification of scenography and dramaturgy.

Vincent Glowinski: Human Brush. Photo Stuart Boulton

The third riverside show is by Vincent Glowinski (from Belgium) and is called Human Brush. And once again, the name is apt. You could go as far as to say that it is very much what it says on the can. Vincent is a living paintbrush, creating shapes and images with light on an enormous screen at the back of the outdoor stage. His dance is fluid and elegant, using the space and all levels expertly, gliding and turning and rolling. A suspended camera tracks his movements, which are then relayed with endless echoes – a kind of instant stop-frame animation at times; and at other times, a swirling screen-saver of digital imagery. It’s all accompanied by pounding beat-driven music. I enjoy the first 15 or 20 minutes, but then the intensity of the sound, and the constant strain of looking at blue-white light, proves too much for me – I admire the concept and the skill, but after a while I can’t really take the strain on eyes and ears, and move off quietly.

Heading away from the riverside, I walk along Church Road and catch the tail end of Korean company Muljil’s Elephants Laugh, in which performers and audience members find themselves immersed in tanks of water, in a piece which is inspired by the Haenyeo female divers of Jeju Island, who in their quest for shellfish endure terrifying moments of breathlessness. Having missed most of the show, I have no idea how people are enticed into the water – but the sight of the fully-clothed people bobbing up for air in the full tanks is certainly an extraordinary image.

As that show ends, I move on down the High Street – and encounter the strung-up cars that are the installation that remains following the end of Generik Vapeur’s show Droles d’oiseaux et art blaxon, which had been seen on the opening night of the festival. Standing close, the cars seem larger than they appear to be in photos, looming up proudly in the deserted street.

The one evening show that I miss, sadly, is the festival’s close, Hotel Watercage, by Dutch company Theater Tol – an aerial show that, it is said, investigates the battle between head and heart. As I leave Stockton town centre on Sunday evening, I see the giant birdcages dangling from their rig, waiting to be populated by the human ‘birds’ that will fly into them later that evening. It is a beautiful image to be left to muse upon as the train pulls out of Stockton station and heads off along Britain’s first every railway line.

Generik Vapeur: Droles d’oiseaux et art blaxon. Photo Stuart Bolton

Featured image (top): Furinkai: Origami at Stockton International Riverside Festival. Photo: Stuart Boulton

Stockton International Riverside Festival 2019 took place Thursday 1 August to Sunday 4 August, at various locations in Stockton town centre. See www.sirf.co.uk

Open Minds, Open Doors – a day spent at Summerhall

A rainy Edinburgh evening, and there are puddles everywhere. I’m in a queue round the back of Summerhall, next to the Pickering Gin distillery, near the Paines Plough Roundabout tent (a big yellow geodesic dome) and one young man standing nearby says to his friend: ‘So this is where all the clever stuff is, you know, not your regular comedy shows and stuff, like Pleasance, but….’ I wait to hear how he’s going to finish this thread, …like, experimental modern dance and things like that.’ The friend tries to sound interested but his oh, uh huh? doesn’t sound convincing.

He’s half-right. Summerhall is the Edinburgh Fringe venue where you’re most likely to see the more experimental sort of shows – not just dance, but also contemporary European theatre, live art, and circus-theatre that is about a lot more than tricks and turns. But it is also (in that Roundabout tent and elsewhere) the best of new writing – comedian Richard Gadd’s debut play Baby Reindeer, about his experience of being stalked, is a hot ticket in this category. You’ll find plenty of reviews from Summerhall in Total Theatre, as so many of the artists we love and support play there – this year, for example, sees the return of previous TT Award winners Ridiculusmus, Sh!t Theatre and Rachel Mars, amongst many other excellent shows.

Summerhall is not just a Fringe venue – it operates year-round as an arts centre running exhibitions, shows, workshops, and talks – and it hosts the archive of the venue and gallery’s founder Richard Demarco (the legendary artist and promoter who co-founded the Traverse Theatre, and presented early UK performances by Marina Abramović, Joseph Beuys, and Tadeusz Kantor’s Cricot 2 group).

One of the delights of a visit to Summerhall in August is the chance to see the visual art exhibitions, and to experience some of the work programmed into unconventional spaces around the site.

This year, the courtyard is hosting the Swallow the Sea Caravan – which is indeed a vintage caravan that can seat an audience of four people, with a roster of three shows on offer on different days. The day I went along, it was Lamp, which was a lovely 15-minute object theatre piece in which two performer-puppeteers animate a pair of large lampshades, which take on a life of their own (of course the whole point of object animation) in a gently absurdist narrative. Sometimes the lampshades ‘dance’ in the space alone; sometimes hands, feet, and heads pop out, creating wonderfully weird moving pictures. It’s all accompanied by an acapella sung soundtrack of hums, sighs, and squeals. Lovely stuff!

In front of the main building is another structure, a shipping container, which is the site for Darkfield’s Coma. This follows on from previous Darkfield shows Seance and Flight with a similar setting – a 20-minute show set in the dark, exploring fear and anxiety – the audience member wearing headphones that provide a high-quality surround-sound soundtrack. Invited in to the container, we pass an archaic coffee machine and grafitti saying Don’t Take the Pill, to find a double row of bunk beds, stacked in threes. Each bed unit is covered in white vinyl – everything is white, with a blue-white light illuminating the space. I go for a floor-level bunk, it feels like the safest bet. We put on our headphones, and an unnaturally slow and calm authoritative voice (think: secure institution – intensive care unit, asylum, jail) suggests that we take off our shows and settle down. There is, we are told, a pill on a little shelf (check: yep, there it is) and we are told to take it, it won’t harm us. Do I take the pill? Yep. It’s a theatre show. They’re not going to poison or drug us, are they? The lights start to dim, we are warned that this is our last chance to leave, and soon we are in total darkness, with just the voice for company. The voice that becomes voices, near or far. There are footsteps, and skirmishes, and then someone is (apparently) whispering in my ear… I enjoy Coma – for me, it’s a purely sensory experience, a kind of virtual reality fairground ride. Once the experience has ended, there is not a lot left to ruminate on.

Inside the main building, there are numerous visual art exhibitions. Jane Frere’s Exit – 100 Days of Khaos ‘holds up a mirror to the continuing political turmoil that has followed the narrow EU referendum vote’ with a series of arresting lino cuts, murals, collages, and prints (mostly in a palette of graphical black, red and white) along with film animations created in collaboration with Georges Eloi Thibault. Scottish artist Alan Smith’s The New World is an interesting series of works, a contemporary response to Tiepolo’s 225-year-old painting Il Mondo Nuovo, in which Smith – for most of his life a painter and ceramicist – discovers the medium of photography in his later life, but developing that new interest with a painterly eye.

Down in the basement, there’s space given over to the graphics and campaign materials Extinction Rebellion, with a number of linked performance works programmed.

Also in the basement, Mats Staub presents 21: Memories of Growing Up – a really wonderful installation piece based on filmed interviews, with the starting point the question: Where were you when you turned 21? In this edition of the work, more than 80 subjects are featured. Entering the room (two linked rooms, in fact) you see large screens lining the walls, with seats and headphones with each. Each ‘station’ features four interviewees. I decide that in the time I have (you can spend up to two hours in the space – I have an hour in there and wish it could be longer) to listen to as many interviews as I can in full, rather than nipping butterfly-like around the space. So I mostly stay put, and get to hear the stories of Ms Marie, a woman of Asian heritage from Cape Town, South Africa; Mr Modai, from Eilat, Israel; and Mr Yéré, originally from West Africa.

The artist has made the brilliant decision to first show us the subject sitting and listening to their own interview, and we then get their response to hearing their own words. This makes for a beautifully multi-layered piece that is as much about the process of remembering as it is about the memories themselves. The stories I hear are very different, and the responses equally varied. Ms Marie listens solemnly, with the occasional wry smile, to her story of unplanned pregnancy, the decision to have an abortion, and the subsequent soul-searching as a feminist who supports a woman’s right to choice, but who personally would not make the same choice again. She says, astutely reflecting on hearing her own story in her own words, that ‘there are three me’s in the room – the me doing the listening, the me talking, and the me being remembered.’ Mr Modai is an Israeli soldier turned circus artist. He turned 21 in 2001 – and refers to the fall of the Twin Towers obliquely, noting that as someone who lived with day-to-day violence, bombings and attacks, the response to 9/11 is different to someone who has never experienced terror. He claims that he doesn’t feel there was any one moment of ‘coming of age’ and still doesn’t see himself as a grown-up. He is mostly in neutral mode as he listens to his own words, saying only that yes, this was how it was… Mr Yéré on the other hand listens to his own words with tears, smiles, and sometimes enormous guffaws of laughter. As a young man, his ambitious Ivory Coast family were determined that he would study maths and economics, which he dutifully did, but then chucked it in to do what he really wanted to do – study history. There was enormous resistance, but he stuck to his guns. This, he reflects, is perhaps the moment of adulthood – when you first confront and stand up to your parents. Years later, his mother praised him for his determination. Reflecting on the experience of listening to himself, he says to the artist/the camera: ‘ It’s like listening to someone I know [rather than to myself]. Hearing what I said to you moved me.’ A really wonderful piece of work – I’d love to experience it again – only another 77 or so interviews to hear!

Featured image (top): Swallow the Sea Caravan: Lamp.

Swallow the Sea Caravan is supported by Puppet Animation Scotland.

Darkfield: Coma runs in 30 minute slots 31 July to 25 August 2019.

Mats Staub’s 21: Memories of Growing Up is presented at Summerhall throughout August as part of the Pro Helvetia Swiss Selection Edinburgh programme.

For more about Summerhall’s Edinburgh Fringe 2019 programme and year-round activities, see www.summerhall.co.uk

Still Hungry: Raven

So, what sort of a mother are you? Raven, woodpecker or eagle?

Still Hungry’s collective of three artists – Anke van Engelshoven, Lena Ries and Romy Seibt – have come together to create innovative circus works that are ‘fresh, feminist, strong, and do not shy away from exploring personal themes that are not easily found in circus’. In Raven, they explore what it is to be a mother – and more specifically, what it is to be a circus artist mother.

The German Rabenmutter (Raven Mother) is a derogatory term that refers to absent mothers, who in extreme cases give up their children for adoption or neglect them, or in a more mundane example, are just ‘not there’ for their children. Maternal guilt, the desire to do the best for your children whilst retaining some sense of self, the eternal and oppressive nature of laundry, worrying about whether your body is up to it after childbirth, fielding the calls from agents that have no awareness that family life might mean that being on the road 200 days a year is not feasible – it’s all here in Raven. But expertly mixed and mulched in with top notch circus skills: these three have CVs that include appearances with Cirque du Demain (Paris), Montreal’s Les 7 Doigts, Cirque Eloize, and (inevitably) Cirque Du Soleil.

At the start of the piece, each woman, sporting a vest emblazoned with her name, introduces herself – physically, through her own chosen circus skill; then we hear her words, delivered in recorded voice-over, which she listens to attentively, looking out to the audience – a lovely touch. Through meeting them via their physical skill, then watching them listening to their own stories, we get a real sense of each woman’s uniqueness. We start with a fantastic corde lisse routine from Romy; then Lena, a brilliant contortionist; and finally Anka a thrilling straps artist. All three are mothers of two children apiece, ages ranging from 3 to 13.

The piece flows effortlessly from one scene to another. The laundry mountain sparks a brilliant dance and object manipulation vignette from Romy. There’s a fabulously funny birth scene, then a whole army of baby dolls take over the stage, as we hear stories of post-natal exhaustion, breastfeeding and trying to be all things to all people, always. A sofa is the centrepiece of the stage setting – a sofa to be clambered over and through, leapt over, laid upon. The complicity between the three women is tangible, and the integration of the circus work into the theatre narrative is commendable. Then, we step out of the domestic mire to witness a Berlin club scene, our Ravens delighted to have flown the nest for a while to smoke and dance and forget, just for a moment, that they have chicks in the nest.

Later in the piece, we get to meet the real-life offspring (on screen), who all seem wonderfully happy and well adjusted, not at all damaged by having mothers who sprout wings and fly from time to time.

Raven has been co-authored by the three performers. In the early stages of making the work, the company worked with Bryony Kimmings, who is credited with ‘creative support’ rather than named as director of the piece. (The show is co-directed by the company and Rachel Hameleers.)

Edinburgh Fringe 2019 has seen a fantastic amount of excellent circus, much of it challenging the boundaries of the form. Even amongst this plethora of high quality circus-theatre, Raven stands out as an exceptional piece of work.

Raven is presented at the Edinburgh Fringe 2019 by Chamåleon Productions in association with Aurora Nova.

Featured image (Top): Still Hungry: Raven. Photo by Daniel Porsdorf.

Ontroerend Goed: Are we not drawn onward to new erA

Ontroerend Goed, who have previously wowed Fringe audiences with one-on-one performances, sensory journeys, gambling casinos, and dating games, return to Edinburgh with a show that – gosh! – is presented on a regular stage, and doesn’t involve any audience interaction or immersion. Although actually, this isn’t the first time… The company have very many modus operandi, a whole bag of theatrical tricks up their sleeves, and in my experience their ‘regular’ staged theatre shows have, in recent years, been their most exciting and innovative work. Are we not drawn onward to new erA is a magnificent piece of theatre: inventive, absorbing, challenging, surprising.

In case you’re wondering about the title, it’s a palindrome – and that is highly relevant. The programme contains a Kierkegaard quote, which is also highly relevant: ‘Life must be lived forwards, but can only be understood backwards.’

So, a wide stage. A small tree bearing one apple. A woman lying curled on the ground. Ah, Eve then. A man enters, the apple is eaten, with calm concentration. And so it starts. Little by little, one step at a time, the stage becomes populated by people and objects. People speak in a strange language. I try to work out what it is, and eventually twig. Talking of twigs: one of the men lays into the little tree and pulls it to bits. Another man, carrying a party balloon, goes off to get the head of a giant gold statue. Other parts of the statue are dragged on, and it’s erected. There’s a selfie moment. The stage gets more and more crowded, and a point of complete ludicrousness is reached as clouds of prettily-coloured plastic bags rain down, covering every bit of available space.

And then? Well, we’ve reached the point of no return. Point Zero. The moment when humanity has caused so much damage to the planet that it has become uninhabitable for our species.

And then? What can be done? We can’t turn the clock back, can we? There’s no Planet B, no second chance. Is there? Time’s arrow flies forward…

The second half is an extraordinary coup de theatre – and it would be unreasonable of me to say any more about the narrative. I will switch instead to talking about form rather than content.

Are we not drawn onward to new erA mixes engaging and carefully choreographed live performance by an ensemble of six actors, a very novel and clever use of video (Jeroen Wuyts and Babette Poncelet), and original musical composition (by William Basinski) played by a sextet of musicians from the Spectra Ensemble. Director Alexander Devriendt, who is a co-founder of the company, does a great job pulling all elements together to create a piece that is both funny and disturbing, frighteningly pessimistic and full of melancholic, perhaps desperate, hope. The twist at the centre of the piece has the quality of one of those bargaining rescue fantasies you have after someone dies, in which you imagine that you can go back to the fateful moment and just do things differently. Or the fantasy in which the dead person turns up in your dreams to reassure you that they haven’t died after all. But then you wake up… But no, you’re still dreaming, just dreaming you’re awake.

Are we not drawn onward to new erA is a cleverly staged, visually sumptuous dream – technically, a fantastic achievement, and artistically, a truly beautiful show full of pensive sadness.

Featured image (top) Ontroerend Goed: Are we not drawn forward to new erA. Photo Mirjam Devriendt